Building_development

33:55 Those do have an impact, but as you can see from the previous chart, they really are a small percentage of the overall cost of projects. And so before we get into our actions, we just wanted to highlight some case studies. So part of the last two slides are really conceptual, talking about how theoretically you can impact the housing markets. And so we thought we would bring forth some examples, and Chad's already talked a lot about Austin, but Austin and Minneapolis are really, if you go online and search and the literature that we see a lot of, they're the two markets that are called out most frequently in terms of policy leading to positive outcomes in the housing market.

34:49 And so as Chad mentioned, Austin made a number of significant policy changes mainly on the land use side, so up zoning land, particularly in commercial corridors, reducing parking minimums, but also adding significant density bonuses for affordable housing, and the timing of that was perfect in terms of Austin's kind of job growth, and so they attracted a lot of new investment, a lot of new residents, and had explosive growth and significant new housing production. Austin has had the most noticeable drop in rents in the United States, in any big market in the United States. So like the case study that people look at when they say if you build enough supply, you actually can materially impact rents, and you saw from the graph that Chad showed

35:46 you that their housing production significantly outpaced their population growth, and that's the level of production you need to get to to really have that kind of impact. I do want to say that Austin has this interesting mix of progressive policies, land use policies, other development policies, and kind of the Texas land use framework, which provides a lot of open land for development, so those conditions may be unique to a place like Austin. Minneapolis was the other place that shows up a lot, and Minneapolis was one of the first big cities to do the kind of systematic up zoning that we just did with our comp plan, so they were one of the first big cities to up zone all their single family property, allow for multifamily development through much of the city, and then as you can see

36:42 on the slide, they addressed a number of the other similar things around parking minimums and building heights and up zoning on commercial corridors. So Minneapolis didn't have the same kind of explosive growth that you saw in Austin, but they had a noticeable impact on their housing costs and rents, and statistically relevant in this case, they slowed rent growth and slowed the cost of housing compared to other areas in the Midwest, and they've documented a reduction in homelessness. So definitely a place that people look to a lot and say, "This is the impact of policy." I really want to point out, though, the dates are in here for a reason. This took, Minneapolis has played out over a decade, and now they're 15 years into it. Austin's played out over a decade, and then the new example, the last example, New Rochelle,

37:40 which is a much smaller scale example, so unfortunately, these things do take time, and the massive change in our land use system is early enough that we do have to have some patience in terms of seeing the type of growth that these other markets have experienced. New Rochelle is a different kind of example. It's more of a redevelopment example. They were very proactive with very concentrated ownership of land near a very significant transit station that fed into New York City, and they saw significant new development there and slowed rent growth and also attracted a lot of new residents and actually increased the diversity of the city as a result. So a different kind of example, but a toolbox that we also have as well with our redevelopment tools.

38:39 So you have seen this slide before, and it's always just like to remind everybody that we've been taking a series of actions in recent years to try and address the decline in housing production, and I just want to, as I show this slide, I just want to remind, kind of tie it back to the previous slide, so the actions we've taken, multifamily tax exemption directly addresses the tax part of that pro forma, which reduces financing costs, system development charges, impact fees, delaying that, it also directly impacts financing costs, reducing development review times, once again reduces financing costs, and then our work on the single stairwell code, the six story wood frame construction, those are direct changes in our local building code that will produce savings on the construction side. We haven't had projects yet, but we've been told by our development partners that they

39:39 do see those as producing cost savings. And then lastly, but certainly once again, this is the foundation is the adoption of the comprehensive plan is, in the next slide, Chad, I'll walk you through that, is really the most significant action we have taken in, you know, the past probably decade in terms of trying to encourage new housing production. >> Yeah, great segue. So some measures that are related to the comp plan that we've implemented now, the comp plan has, is officially adopted, the comment period ended, the new development code is on the books, it is in effect, as of today, actually. So we, through the comp plan, council removed parking minimums, that's a huge benefit to

40:37 reducing costs in new development, as you know, we allow more housing as of right, there are no longer density maximums, it's the building height and setbacks that control what the density can be on a particular lot. Also up to six units can be developed on a single family lot. So opened up much more land for development opportunity. We're also working on calibrating our infrastructure requirements for middle housing. As you can imagine, adding six units where the system may be contemplated, one unit will have some knock on effects on the system, and so we're working with our public works

41:32 department to figure out exactly what those infrastructure requirements need to be. Under state law, we can't treat middle housing differently than single family housing. So we're trying to thread a needle there and make sure that the systems can handle the housing that will be coming. We're also establishing dedicated permitting and review team for middle housing. That'll be the same team that handles all of these projects. So they're going to gain the expertise in dealing with these unique lots and new types of development to make sure the process goes smoothly. As you know, we're working on changes to our impact fee structure, state laws now requiring

42:29 us to base impact fees on the number of bedrooms as opposed to just the units, the number of units. And also we're promoting preapproved plans through our master program. We're taking a program that has existed for a number of years, which is developers operating in the same subdivision could take the same housing plan and apply it to another lot. They get a reduced permit fee for that, and then they don't have to have the expense of redesigning those home plans. We're taking that program, which has been very successful, and expanding it citywide. So now any permit that is a home permit that's approved or middle housing permit that's approved,

43:26 that developer, that applicant can take that same housing plan, take it outside of, doesn't have to be in the same subdivision, they can go anywhere in the city, so long as the site conditions are similar, they can use that set of plans without having to go through a full permit review. So it expedites the permit process, and it's now able to be used citywide. We had some discussion at the last workshop for the preapproved plans for like ADUs. We did a fair amount of research looking at other jurisdictions, trying to understand the benefits of that type of program. There are risks with that, and so we've decided that we want to try this master same as program.

44:23 We think there will be much more uptake in the use of that. And I can go into some of the details on the preapproved plans if you want. Also we're exploring middle housing home ownership and production strategies. The ability to divide existing lots into much smaller lots that maybe have an ADU on them creates a home ownership opportunity for someone who only wants to live in that smaller unit.